Millions of jobs are emerging as the world moves beyond fossil fuels. How can they be filled in a fair way?

More than a century ago, fossil fuels brought power to our cities, revolutionised transportation and gave way to new professions, from oil drilling to electromechanical engineering. But the burning of coal, oil and gas also emitted enough carbon dioxide to alter our climate and spur extreme weather events that the UN warns could remain the norm unless emissions are nearly halved by 2030. ¹

In recognition of the high stakes of inaction, governments and businesses have pledged to meet ambitious climate change targets, mainly through transitions to renewable energy. The global energy shift is already well under way, with investment in clean energy up by 40% since 2020, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).² Like the fossil-fuel revolution before it, this green energy transition is reshaping not only the way we heat our homes and illuminate our cities, but also the vast behind-the-scenes workforces that keep the lights on.

Companies at the forefront of the energy transition, such as Iberdrola, which has laid millions of kilometres of digitised grids essential for getting more clean energy online, have also been investing in a new workforce for a new era.

This is a massive undertaking that requires the world’s existing energy workforce to be retrained, but also expanded. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that the green energy transition could create 25m jobs by 2030 ³ to support the rollout of more clean energy infrastructure, the scaling of new technologies such as green hydrogen and the day-to-day running of the planet’s new power systems.

Estrella Martín Segurado, Iberdrola’s director of global talent, learning and development, calls the energy transition “the challenge of our generation”.

“We cannot fail,” she says. “The challenges are multiple: political, technological but above all human.”

New jobs for a changing energy economy

At the human level, the transition means change for millions of workers. The ILO predicts that 6m jobs will be phased out in the coming years, but that these will be offset by jobs created.³ However, new jobs will require different skills from those long demanded in the fossil-fuel economy. Boston Consulting Group calculates that the green energy transition faces a “critical shortage” of 7m skilled workers, with the biggest shortfalls including solar panel installers, wind farm operators, and research and development engineers for solar and battery technologies.⁴

Although companies can fill some of these gaps by retraining workers in the fossil-fuel industry to do broadly comparable green jobs (such as teaching offshore oil rig technicians how to maintain offshore wind turbines), the entire energy industry must work to close a broader computer science and digital skills gap.

Cristina De Inza Pujadas, an innovation manager at Iberdrola, attributes the gap to the vast differences between the electromechanical systems of the 20th century and the digital networks required for the green energy transition. Older systems, she explains, are not digitised and offer little visibility into the flow of electricity from central power plants through transmission cables to customers. Newer “smart” networks use sensors and monitors to capture data and track the flow of energy in real time from renewable energy sources to customers, and even from them, if, for example, customers produce surplus energy through solar panels. These more complex but efficient systems also use machine learning and artificial intelligence to predict future demand and automatically detect and respond to issues. Ms De Inza explains that the new system makes it more likely for a field technician to investigate potential problems remotely, perhaps with the help of robots or drones, than by driving out to a site to climb a ladder and investigate. “The new context requires us to combine the green and digital revolutions,” she points out.

Pedro Ibáñez Ereño, director of talent recruitment at TECNALIA Research & Innovation, a technological hub that works closely with Iberdrola on green energy projects, says that the new reality translates to a new world of opportunities for data scientists, data engineers and programmers interested in applying their skills—especially AI skills—to renewable energy.

Beyond tech experts, Mr Ereño says, energy companies need more people with advanced degrees to scale emerging clean energy solutions, such as green hydrogen, which holds vast potential but is in an earlier phase of development than wind and solar energy sources. “The few experts in this area are highly demanded, so we need to increase the number of people with a background in electrochemistry, electronics and hydrogen training.”

Ensuring a just transition

As new roles and industries displace older ones, companies at the forefront of the energy transition must ensure that the results are not only good for the planet, but fair and inclusive for people too.

Iberdrola's approach to ensuring a just transition includes its launch in 2023 of Global Green Employment, an international online database of green energy jobs and training opportunities.⁵ It includes the company’s STAR Project, which provided more than 50,000 hours of training to 3,300 employees tasked with digitising distribution networks in Spain. The company also targets women for inclusion in the green energy economy in order to boost their representation in the global energy sector, which currently stands at 16%, according to IEA data.⁶ Through partnerships with leading global universities, Iberdrola also supports green energy training and innovation.⁷

Beyond workforce expansion and development, Iberdrola works with communities affected by change. In Spain, it spearheaded a green recovery plan in Lada and Velilla, where it closed its last two coal plants in 2020.⁸ Iberdrola maintained its full workforce to complete the four-year decommissioning process and launched a platform to train locals in new skills, boost entrepreneurship and engage them in accelerating future plans.

“It is essential that companies establish relationships of trust, listening and collaboration,” Ms Segurado says, adding that other ways in which they can support communities are through investment in green technologies, training and hiring of local suppliers.

With renewable energy on track to become the world’s top source of electricity by 2025, according to IEA data,⁹ the world is already going through significant changes. To ensure that these changes are fair and inclusive, energy leaders need to prioritise retraining opportunities for fossil-fuel workers, recruit more experts in data science and green hydrogen, partner with universities to create a relevant workforce pipeline, and work with communities undergoing green transitions to ensure that they become better off than previously.